Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1887-08-06
~LANoSllsS
C~AtAstrophe> WhGch oocav a Mountain
DISTRICTS q Earepe.

CafaStrcphc> Which Oscar anti Mountain
DISTRICTS - EarePe
Msuv II the Swiss villages exist a.
mos; on >sfcuAuca The avalanche If
snow OF the avalanche Of earth may ST
shy momeD, sweep them away. " what
: equally vU,Doa~ overwhelm them
With the debris O! the mountain ST the
foot u which they are built In not
few instances the laDd>,jp i - slow
in il pr,--e>> tbs, ills only sque>tion
If time when the iDal catastrophe
Will be prccipjtajei 4; Bee Rouge in
the Tayeutai>e, for example, the side Of
The mountain i gradually ovcrwhelm-
,nC the village Of Minor. In mos,
cases however. the calamity is sudden
and unexpected Such an instance
j supplied by the fall Of the Ro>sberE,
5 wei. known mountain. 5000 feet
high, situated jus, behind the better
known and lot,jer Ri-i In 1906, after
avery rainy season. a large portion Of
the mountain, consisting Of hard beds
Of sandstone andpuddin- stone, resting
on soft sandy layers, suddenly swept
across the valley Of Goldau, burying
four villages, comprising over three
hundred houses, nearly 1--WE hundred
inhabitants and more than e~ighty-tiye
square miles Of fertile land. In
1875 . mass O dchriS slid into the val
ley Of the Tiber, which damned back
by the obstruction o~vertlowcd the vii
lage Of san S~tefana 10 the depth of fifty
feet, until the drowned village WAS
relieved by means Of a hastily con-
>tructed canal. Another example of
a disastrous landslip is that in which,
by the sliding of Il portion of Monte
Como, the entire village of Plurs, with
,. 1870 inhabitants. was in 1918 over
whelmcd. For several days before the
catastrophe masses of rock had become
detached from the mountain and nu-
merouS assures were observed To form
or widen on its side. But the village
dlsrcgarded the warnings and were in
a few minutes buried, with all their
possessions, beneath sixty feet of rock
and earth. All attempts to penetrate
the mas proved fruitlcss, and no trace
Of the town has since been seen. The
earth which entombcd it is now
clothed with a luxuriant forest of
chestnutS, but the original name still
survives in the little village of Plurs, or
Pluro.
1t may also be said that these catas-
trophies are 50 frequent hat history
preserves the memory Of only the most
disastrous. Such a one was that by
which the village of Elm was over
whelmcd only IA few years ago, At
that time the place contained fifty
houses and nearly $50 inhabitants,
most of them children and old people.
Nearly half of them were killed, while
most Of the dwelling houses were alto
gethcr crushed or buried beneath the de
bris from that portion of the TSchingel
Alp. which broke away from its parent
mountain. Altogether. though the
Elm catastrophe was, in the loss of life
and property, of less magnitude than
those which overlook Plurs and Col
dau, it is doubtful whether it did not,
in the amount Of rubbish shot from the
mountain side, surpass both of these
gigantic landslidcs. The Swiss gcol-
ogists who visited the spot Immediately
after the disaster calculated that, at
the lowest estimate, the contents of
the slip measured 100000 cubic
metres. What a vast amount of ma
terial this pile contains may be grasped
by a simple illustration. Zurich is a
city of 5000 inhabitants, Yet, in the
debris shot from the side Of the
Tschingel Alp there was stone enough
to build two Zurichs. Some of the
blocks are hcaped 800 or 400 feet
higher than the village of Elm. One
is estimated to weigh 800 tons, and as
these gigantic missiles were precipi-
tated from a height of 1000 feet, the
irresistible force with which they fell
on the doomed village can easily be
imagined.-LoHdon Standard.